August 2013

Carbonite Cloud Back Up Review and Giveaway!

29/08/2013

The good folks at Carbonite not only let me try it out, but they want one of our readers to have some peace of mind, too, so we’re giving away one year of the Home plan, a $59.99 value to one of you! It can also be used as a free year for anyone that already uses Carbonite. All you have to lose is a little upload time, and since you’re still able to do everything you normally do, that’s no biggie! [More]

Add Copyright Information in Photoshop – Automatically

27/08/2013

It's always a good idea to copyright your work, and that includes embedding the appropriate information into your image metadata. Learn the three step process to create a template to add copyright metadata, to create an action to apply your template, and to use Photoshop's Script Events Manager to run your action every time you work on a file. It may sound scary, but it's a simple process, and you can "set it and forget it." I’ve written about this before a few years back, but this is a good reminder, I’ve brought it up to date with the latest version of Photoshop, and here is a video tutorial for those who prefer video learning. [More]

Remove Black and White Backgrounds in Photoshop

22/08/2013

In this tutorial, exclusively for TipSquirrel.com, I show you how to remove black and white backgrounds from your photos using the Blend If controls within your Layer Styles dialogue box. [More]

Adobe Camera RAW from HDR Pro

21/08/2013

I love HDR pro, and with the new Tone in ACR feature the workflow is quicker and easier than ever! With just a few clicks I can avoid all the HDR sliders and work in Adobe Camera Raw, where I’m much more familiar and comfortable with the controls. [More]

Data Driven Images in Photoshop

20/08/2013

You may find yourself with a list of images to create, each one based on a template but with unique data and imagery. An example would be sports team cards, or trading cards, with images and text on each one. Photoshop can help to automate this process, and all it requires is a bit of planning and up front work - and a small text file. Learn to take advantage of data driven images in Photoshop and save yourself loads of time. [More]

Quick Mask-Style Selections in Photoshop Elements

16/08/2013

Creating the final selection in Photoshop Elements 11

I recently wrote an article here on TipSquirrel about using Photoshop's Pencil tool to make complicated selections. A comment was posted asking if the same thing was possible using Photoshop Elements. The answer to that is yes, but, as with a few things in Elements, we have to use a couple of workarounds. The original tutorial used Photoshop's Quick Mask feature. This allows us to create selections by painting them with the Brush tool (or any other of the drawing tools); the selected areas show up as a coloured overlay. Elements doesn't have this feature, sadly, so we'll be using an adjustment layer and its mask to achieve the same result. [More]

Lightroom 5 And the new Radial Filter

15/08/2013

One of the best new features introduced with Lightroom 5 was Radial Filters. Radial Filters combine the controls of the adjustment brush (exposure, contrast, sharpness etc.) with circle based control points (if you’ve used any of the Nik filters you’ll be used to these sort of control points already). The new Radial Filters are really easy to use and can be a great tool to improve your photographs. [More]

Cartoon Effect in Photoshop

09/08/2013

I love playing with filters in Photoshop and in this tutorial I get to use two of the old timers. The effect were going to create is similar to the classic look of printed images in newspapers and comics. It’s a bold graphic effect which can make use of any photo but by far the best photos are those with big bold shapes. Portraits are perfect… even the ones that aren’t perfectly sharp! [More]